First GWR High Speed Train off-lease this month

The first Great Western Railway High Speed Train will go off-lease on August 31, Angel Trains has confirmed to RAIL.

Power cars 43021 David Austin - Cartoonist and 43132 We Save the Children - Will you? will leave GWR, along with Trailer First (TF) 41032, Trailer Standards (TS) 42045-047, 42207 and 42561.

Owned by Angel Trains, these are the first HST vehicles to be withdrawn by GWR, and they are destined for ScotRail. The coaches will be moved to Wabtec Rail’s Doncaster facility for modifications, overhaul and refurbishment which includes fitting plug doors to the coaches to enable them to be in operation beyond January 1 2020.

ScotRail will introduce HSTs on routes serving its seven cities from next year. All will be leased from Angel, with 54 power cars to be refurbished by Wabtec at its Brush Traction Loughborough site, and 121 Mk 3s to pass through Doncaster.

The project will be completed in May 2019, with 17 five-coach and nine four-coach sets entering traffic.

For more on this story, including details of what HSTs are staying with GWR, read RAIL 834, published on August 30.

Reply as guest

To pastures new for the HST's with many more years left in them despite their age. For GWR a strange twist really. New IEP's certainly greener to Reading or wherever the OHL has reached but back to diesel for the rest of the journey at a lower top speed. Sort of a forward and backward step simultaneously.

Reply as guest

Hard to believe hst s are on way out. Still years left in them. But someone thinks new trains will help overcrowding and punctuality. The east coast trains are full and standing on most services. Plus hsts had the capacity for luggage. Just look at voyagers. Too small and cramped. And they re modern.

Reply as guest

At least some of them are to transfer to Scotland. Whilst other Class 43 HST's could go to other train operates including Grand Central, Crosscountry and East Midlands Trains as they could need extra HST trains.